A wildfire started on the south side of U.S. Highway 14/16/20 in the North Fork area on Saturday and it continued to burn Monday in the Shoshone National Forest. The fire moved up the drainage from the road quickly, growing to nearly 600 acres by Saturday evening and forcing the evacuations of two guest ranches west of Wapiti. It did not grow further on Sunday.

High winds and rough terrain made it tough to contain the fire, said Brett Morefield, an incident commander trainee with the Bureau of Land Management out of Worland.

“It caused a very challenging day for this early in the season,” Morefield said of Saturday. “With the winds and the temperatures we had it was a predominantly a wind-driven fire through a lot of last year’s dead cheatgrass and annual grasses, which caused it to basically rapidly spread up the hills.”

The fire was reported around 12:45 p.m. Saturday. Park County fire departments and Shoshone National Forest firefighters initially responded, with members of the Powell Volunteer Fire Department responding to the call for mutual aid.

Available helicopters and aircraft were used to supress the fire through the evening and ground resources protected structures at the Bill Cody Ranch and Rimrock Dude Ranch. By Saturday evening, 12 engine crews, two hotshot crews, three helicopters and three airplanes were in service, including crews from the BLM. The highway was temporarily closed as planes dropped chemical retardants and helicopters dropped water on the flames. Park County Search and Rescue assisted the U.S. Forest Service in rescuing six horseback riders from the area, the sheriff’s office said.

Multiple air and ground resources remained on scene through Sunday night, including two Type 1 handcrews, multiple engines, two heavy air tankers, three single engine air tankers, two Type 1 helicopters, and one Type 3 helicopter. The evacuation orders for the Bill Cody Ranch — which was closest to the fire — and the Rimrock Dude Ranch were lifted.

In Facebook posts, managers of the Bill Cody Ranch thanked firefighters, other first responders, volunteers and the ranch’s staff for their help.

“If it weren’t for the promptness of the first responders and the readiness of our staff, we wouldn’t have been able to safely evacuate all of our guests and livestock,” they wrote. The guest ranch planned to open for business on Monday.

The area’s steep terrain also slowed the response and one hot shot firefighter was injured, which required a rescue operation. A falling rock hit him and he fell backwards, hitting his head on a rock. The man was taken by ambulance to Cody where he received “a few stitches in his head, some scrapes on his leg,” said Marvin Matthiesen, operations section chief with the Bighorn National Forest.

“It’s not an easily accessible place for the ground firefighters. So getting those folks in safely is a concern,” Matthiesen said.

High winds once again caused issues Sunday, making it unsafe to fly or causing water to completely miss its mark. But the fire only grew slightly through the day.

“There was no additional growth, which was really nice to see with the amount of wind we had today,” Morefield said Sunday evening. “On a typical fire, maybe a month later, this would have been a terrible day for a fire.”

Crews were making progress Monday and working to put in handlines along the eastern and western sides of the fire, according to a news release.

The Lost Creek Fire has been categorized as a Type 3 incident and is smaller than last year’s Fish Hawk Fire.

One of the biggest safety concerns through the weekend was traffic along the highway, as folks heading through the area to Yellowstone National Park often stopped to watch the fire.

COVID-19 precautions were also on the minds of firefighters.

“This has been a huge change for all of us this year and we’re trying to kind of figure things out the right now,” Morefield said.

Shoshone National Forest District Ranger Sue Eickoff said the team is taking precautions seriously, despite the low number of cases in Park County.

“Here in Park County, we’re in sort of this bubble where we feel like things are going back to normal because we haven’t really had many cases,” Eickoff said. “Now we have tourists, we have firefighters, we have all these people coming into our community. There might be some fear and concern about the fact that we might get more cases happening.”

Crews won’t be gathering in a large, combined incident camp. Seasonal employees and firefighters are also being kept separate and a Sunday public meeting was held outside, to increase social distancing. A stakeholder’s meeting was held online, rather than in person, Eickhoff said.

“We don’t want to bring a bunch of people into a room like we normally do when we have fires going on,” she said.

The early season fire made it easy to get resources on scene, Eickhoff said. “When we made the call, the resources came.”

Crews hope to have the fire suppressed within the next few days.

“We’re making great progress. And hopefully in the next couple of days, we’ll really see a turnaround,” Eickhoff said.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.